


M41.387 A Ring, And Everything

by Sister of Silence (EmpressofMankind)



Series: Aegis of Atonement [8]
Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Depression, F/M, Inquisition, Intrusive Thoughts, Marriage Proposal, Suicidal Thoughts, inquisitors - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 20:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18453974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpressofMankind/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: In the wake of the Pontius affair, Gregor suffers the ‘between-cases’ depression worse than usual. He can barely walk, he’s in chronic pain, they’re on a back-water and they’re running out of prescription medication. Genevieve tries to be understanding but it is difficult to care for someone when they continually push you away.





	M41.387 A Ring, And Everything

  
_"There's a thousand things inside my head, I wish I hadn’t seen_  
_And now I wander through a real bad dream_  
_Feeling like I'm coming apart at the seams_  
_But thank you, ‘Old No. 7’ "_

\- ancient phonograph cylinder  
bearing the same name on its faded label ****

Rain pattered against the glastek panes of the planet-side starport its only watering hole. The rain was discordantly loud and had an odd ring to it, like a tumbler shattering on plasteel decking.

Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn stared out through the tall lancet windows at the glittering planet beyond, nursing a tumbler of locally distilled amasec in his hands. Despite the falling night, it was bright outside. The light of the degenerate, white system star reflected off a thousand-thousand crystals, lighting up the dark. However, the sparkling luster didn’t come from snow, as on so many other exoplanets. It was well over 500 °C outside and razor sharp shards of glass blasted sideways in the eternal storm that raged across the miserable backwater its surface. Gregor had read they could reach speeds upwards of kilometres _per second_. The continuous ringing of their collision with the starport its thick armour plating had a haunting, evil quality to it. Like long-nailed fingers, tapping impatiently. Incessantly. Some years, the storm would be mild. In other years, it was bad. M41.387 was a bad year. Transit cables lacerated. Vox-link suffered. Passage on and off Vulpecula was suspended.

Vulpecula was beautiful, from outer space. It enticed visitors with a marbled, cobalt luster akin to ancient lithographs of Holy Terra. From the surface, it was all lies. The light was not reflected from great oceans, like the Cradle of Mankind, but rather from a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing thick clouds laced with silica particles. Vulpecula was as beautiful as it was deadly, as surely as Catachan. Imperial settlers had colonised it anyway. The high surface pressure and temperatures had seen to the formation of some of the purest adamentium veins this side of the galactic centre. In other words: a gold mine. A deadly gold mine, but a gold mine nonetheless.

Gregor stared out through the lancet windows without seeing any of the planet’s deadly splendour. He was lost in thoughts. They were ‘between cases’, as Genevieve would say. Or ‘in the market for Heresy’,  as her idiot brother would jest. Genevieve was at the starport its modest court office, whiling her time away with the review of low-clearance cases unworthy of her attention, in his opinion. The marshal had been beside herself with delight to have the full attention of a Hereticus Inquisitor to bother with her inconsequential cold cases. Where Marcus loitered Gregor didn’t know and didn’t care. Passage on and off Vulpecula was suspended. They were stuck in transit and he was running out of sufentanil patches.

The pain nagged at the back of his thoughts. Distant, for now. He shifted in his seat but it did nothing to relief the heavy, dead feeling in his legs. Outside, the lethal storm raged on. A man could walk out there and be lacerated in seconds. Gregor took a sip from the amasec. Its quality was poor and burned all the way down. Like being lacerated from the inside. Gregor took another sip. And a third. It dulled the pain, if only for an instant.

“Is this what you’ve decided to do with yourself while we’re here?” Inquisitor Genevieve Allenbrisk enquired. Her voice was soft, her tone choked with concern.

Gregor glanced up. She stood beside him: arms crossed, her expression sad and her long, grey hair in a messy braid. She was wearing a man’s infantry sweater. Not his. “I don’t recall volunteering for an interrogation.”

“I don’t let people talk to me the way you did,” she stated, resolute.

He returned his gaze to the endless swirls of razors outside. A man could walk out there and be lacerated in seconds. A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth but the wry smile he felt wouldn’t appear. Presuming they could walk.

She shifted. He could hear it in the rustle of the sweater’s heavy cloth, the creak of her combat-grade boots. “I want you to understand that.”

Gregor leaned back in his seat and took another sip. He could see her from the corners of his eyes. The sweater’s wide neckline had slipped from one shoulder. “You don’t strike me as tolerant of that sort of behaviour, no,” he surmised.

“That was the point, wasn’t it?” she retaliated. He studied his glass instead of answering. “Pushing me away.” She finally pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. “I’m trying to remember you nearly died, a week ago. That you’ll probably never recover the use of your legs.” She tugged the sweater back onto her shoulder, her mien heartbroken. “I know you’re hurting, Gregor.”

Gregor knew she knew, he was lame not blind. He took another sip but there was nothing left. He stared at the empty glass.

Genevieve smiled weakly, pushing a stray bang of hair from her face. “You want a do-over?”

He turned the glass in his hands. “I don’t know.”

“I guess I want to know if you meant it. What you said.” She chewed her bottom lip and tried to catch his gaze. “Do you want us to stop?”

He dodged her searching eyes, his gaze jumping to his empty tumbler before moving back to the deadly vista outside. Less than a few seconds. Gone with the razor wind. “I don’t know.”

“Greg, what do you _want_?” She leaned towards him, determined. “You want to yell at me again?” She caught his gaze and held it pinned. “You want me to yell at you?”

“No.” He let her look corner him. “I’m sorry for what I said to you.”

“You want me to leave?” she asked, her gaze searching as if trying to read something from his paralysed face. She knew better than to try and take it from his mind. “You want me to stay?”

His gaze had wandered back to his empty glass. Avoiding the question in her eyes - the real question -, maybe. “I don’t know.”

A frown creased her brow and pulled the corners of her lips a fraction further down. The subtle distance between sad and upset. Even her patience had limits. “You’re going to have to decide, Gregor.”

“I haven’t been myself. I feel… I don’t know. I don’t like it,” he admitted. He’d always valued his privacy, never minded being alone. Yet somewhere, along the way, lonesome had become lonely. He looked at his empty glass and put it down. “I want…” he stopped and looked at her. The bang of hair hung in front of her eyes again. The sweater, too, had refused to stay. “I think I want to marry you.”

Her gaze snapped onto his and her blue, blue eyes widened. She was surprised. He smiled and shook his head, barely noticeable, as he glanced at the empty tumbler, standing forlorn on the table. “I didn’t think that would happen for me.”

His expression didn’t change, exactly. It rarely did for the paralysis had been extensive. And before her time. She’d never seen him smile, except on that one old pictograph. She’d never seen him frown, either. She’d learnt to notice other cues, micro-expressions and body language beyond his face. He was hurting, she could tell. His shoulders had slumped, just a fraction, as he spoke. His posture turning inward, away from the world. He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, his hands together, one kneading the thumb joint of the other.

“I suppose, I didn’t let myself.” He looked up at her again. “I didn’t expect this. You.”

They regarded each other for a long moment. He sat up, squared his shoulders. “I mean it.”

A smile broke through Genevieve’s anguished demeanour then. A fragile smile, but a smile nonetheless. She rose and leaned towards him, offering support to help him rise. “Then lets get you home.”

Gregor struggled to stand and it had nothing to do with the amasec. His legs were numb, heavy, no longer moved the way they should, the way his brain in-vainly tried to get them to move. Like before ‘The Accident’, as Genevieve called it, even though there was preciously little accidental about getting shot point-blank in the knees. Twice.

“You can think about how you’ll propose,” Genevieve continued as she put her arm around his waist. She didn’t like the way he swayed as he stood. “And I can think about if I will accept.”

Gregor put his arm around her, gripping her shoulder for support as he straightened, his misaligned spine reluctantly articulating. “I’ll do it,” he said as he glanced down at her. Even though he was head and shoulders taller than the Fenrisian woman, she stood steady and straight, unencumbered by his weight. “Get on my knees with a ring, and everything.”

She crooked an eyebrow, a hint of amusement setting sparkles to her glacier blue eyes, brighter than the glass outside. “I wouldn’t be so cruel as to demand you kneel.”

“I am not messing with you,” he said, serious as ever, and let himself walk into their sparkling luster. “I don’t play.”

Her smile deepened as she tugged him along. “No, I know you don’t.”  
 

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such, it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it! And please, share this story freely but credit me and link back to me. Thank you!


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